Edgar Allan Poe Death Scenes

My sister found this picture on the Guardian website that is so relevant to my ECP it's unreal. So, if you've been feeling a little lost with all my talk about Edgar Allan Poe this might be a helpful starting point to what his stories are like.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/graphic/2012/aug/07/edgar-allan-poe-death-graphic?fb=native#_

Pretty cool, huh?

Popular Children's Authors

When I went up to my old school to do my questionnaire (which everyone should do!) I also asked the librarian what was popular with young readers. Here are a few of the authors she suggested.

Suzanne Collins. Obviously I have read her books, The Hunger Games, who hasn't? And I can see why she is so popular. I liked the first two books but the third got a little odd and too political. I just liked the actual games and all the fighting. 

Jeff Kinney. He's the writer of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series, which must be very popular as they keep making movies. In the questionnaire a lot of the boys wrote that it was their favourite book. His style isn't really something I'm looking to get involved in though.

Liz Pichon. Not heard of her but by the looks of Google she is a kid's book illustrator/writer. Something that isn't really relevant to my ECP at all.

Darren Shan. I just finished reading his book Cirque du Freak for research into children's horror. I enjoyed it and realised why he is a great horror writer but it still felt a little too young. Also, things like Twilight and True Blood have ruined the genuine horror of vampires, now all I can think is that they're very sexual beings. It's so annoying, I prefer them scary. Lots of the kids said that Cirque du Freak was one of their favourite series of books. 

Michael Morpurgo. I've read a few of his books, like Private Peaceful and I've seen War Horse but other than that I'm not a big reader of his. His stuff seems a bit real life drama, which I find a bit boring sometimes. But that doesn't mean they weren't good, they were very emotional and really tugged at your heartstrings. 

Robert Muchamore. This is an author I have never heard of, but one of his most popular books is CHERUB  and has now been made into a graphic novel, so maybe I'll check it out.

Rick Riordan. I really loved The Percy Jackson Series, they were one of my favourite book series as a teen. I even read them secretly during classes. I always had an interest in Greek mythology and these books really brought them to life. I haven't read any of his recent stuff but I'm sure it's just as good. 

Cathy Cassidy. I've only read one of her books and that was years ago. My friend leant me Dizzy (she liked it because it rhymed with her name, Izzy). I remember thinking the book was a little odd even though it's relatively normal. It's not a really a style I'd like to write in.

Chris Higgins. She's not a writer I've ever heard of but it looks like she writes similar things to Cathy Cassidy and Jacqueline Wilson, maybe?

Meg Cabot. She is my favourite author of all time and I've read and own nearly all her books. She even follows me on twitter - how awesome is that? My original ECP idea was inspired by her books but I'm going down the more actiony, mixed gender route now, rather than the chick lit way. Her adult books are just as good as her teen ones, so try reading some, they're bound to make you smile. 

Jacqueline Wilson. She is another author that I loved and at one point I owned nearly all her books too. But I grew out of them and now she has written millions, she seems to churn them out. A lot of the girls said that Wilson was their favourite author and I'm not really surprised. I also loved Nick Sharratt who illustrated her books, because of him I used to want to be an illustrator. I still do a little but writing is my priority. 

Andy Stanton. Another author I haven't heard of but apparently he writes the popular Mr Gum Series. I'll be honest, it's not something that I'm bothered about looking into. 

Sophie McKenzie. She's not a writer I have heard of but I saw the cover of one of her books in the library and it did look quite interesting, though I know not to judge a book by it's cover. But if that was true then they wouldn't make the covers so interesting. She is the author of Blood Ties and I may go and see how much it is on Kindle.

If you have any more suggestions on popular young adult fiction or any books that would relate to my ECP please feel free to comment!

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman!

My second post of August; I think I'll be able to make four more posts easily.

This post is just to say how awesome comic books are. I've been totally sucked in to the whole superhero scene following The Avengers, The Amazing Spiderman, and The Dark Knight Rises (my favourite being TDKR). Oh, we also watched The Green Lantern the other day...what a disaster that was!

For my birthday we dressed (loosely) like superheroes and went to see TDKR at the cinema. We even had superhero cakes, which my mum and myself made. Like them?

Wonder Woman

The Green Lantern

Superman

The Flash

And Batman

 (Okay so we didn't make the Batman one, that was from Tesco.)

I dressed as Wonder Woman, well, I had a Wonder Woman top and her crown and arm dealies at least. But I wanted to know more about her so I bought the comic book, Wonder Woman: The Circle, and it is pretty damn good. I just love the style of drawings and not to mention the lady herself. By that time I had just read The Dark Knight Returns as part of my reading list for my third year. I preferred the art in Wonder Woman but the Frank Miller comic was still good.

Today I read Teen Titans: A Kid's Game and boy was it amazing. Every superhero seemed to be in it and they totally rocked. I especially loved the fight between Wonder Woman and Starfire, and now I'm not sure who I like more! Needless to say, I have now bought the next two in the series.

I was a bit apprehensive about my Comic Book and Graphic Novel module but now I'm just dead excited. I have a feeling it's going to be my favourite module and I have already done a tonne of background reading before the year has even begun!

New ECP Plot Idea?

I have become pretty bad at updating my blog lately, mainly because it's the summer holidays. I did say to myself before the holidays that I was going to keep on top of it and update regularly. Yeah, that didn't happen. So I'm saying now that I will do at least four posts this month, including another character profile sheet. You can tell me off if I don't.

Anyway, this post is about my new plot synopsis. That's right, I've changed my idea for my dissertation. I haven't told my ECP supervisor yet and I'll email it to her before I post it here. I changed my idea for two reasons. One, the questionnaire results showed that my previous idea wouldn't do too well in the market, the kids wouldn't want to read it. And secondly, I was bored of it. The whole thing seemed boring and I wouldn't want to read it either, frankly I didn't want to write it. I'm already excited to write my new idea though.

The changes I've made are because of the results. I haven't changed everything though. Edgar Allan Poe is still involved, the main character is still Lenore, and weird Gothicy things are still happening around town.

It was clear from the results that readers between 12-15 years old liked ambiguous endings (although many of them had to ask what ambiguous meant...) so I have now made my idea part of a series, that way I don't have to answer all the questions at once or wrap it up neatly, and there can be a cheeky cliffhanger or two. Series are way more popular too, if you think of any young adult books they are probably part of a series, and usually a best selling one.

I've also changed the genre. It is more of a horror/fantasy/mystery with some actiony elements thrown in. Fantasy was a big favourite and I'm not surprised, I'm now glad I'm taking the Sci-fi and Fantasy module this year. Romance, on the other hand, wasn't a particular favourite, in fact all the boys hated it. But I will have a hint of romance, as it seems all the popular young adults have a little love triangle going on, think The Hunger Games Series and (though I hate to say it) The Twilight Series.

While Lenore is still the main character she's now not the only one. I am planning to write it from multiple viewpoints as the results showed that while young readers may have preferred male protagonists they didn't mind either gender, really, so I thought I'd do a little bit of both too. Also, I have been reading the Gone Series, which has many viewpoints which works pretty well, it really keeps you interested and moves the story along at a nice pace. Though some character's stories are a lot more exciting than the others. These books also made me realise that some weird things happen in books but kids just go along with it. (It also has a thing called a 'gaiaphage'. Seriously, since doing the Writing and the Environment module I've heard about Gaia everywhere. She won't leave me alone!)

I have tried writing in the present tense as well as the past tense and I haven't decided which one I like more. I always have issues with tense; I skip between them all the time meaning I lose marks quite a bit. I'm thinking that if I do it in present tense maybe I won't skip so much, and the results showed that the readers do prefer the present tense. It's a decision I will make at a later date, after my supervisor has okayed the plot.

It will probably be in third person just so the point of views don't get all muddled. Also because I always do the first person so it might be nice to try something new. Third person allows you to explore more and not just be stuck in the character's head.

So there were some hints about my new idea. I'll post it later this month along with a character profile sheet about the new Lenore and maybe the other characters too.